


Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - H50 - Steve/Danny

by loveinadoorway



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-28
Updated: 2011-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:36:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plot prompt #44 of the After Holidays Prompt Fest at <span></span><a href="http://stevedannoslash.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://stevedannoslash.livejournal.com/"><b>stevedannoslash</b></a> :<br/>Steve and Danny go undercover to bust up a Gladiator-style fight club. The bad guys figure out who they are and make sure the next fight they are up against each other. Any rating. I'd love first time fic.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - H50 - Steve/Danny

**Author's Note:**

> 7 years of Latin in school a couple of hundred years ago made me go a bit overboard with the different gladiators. ;0) Couldn’t quite see the two of them hacking at each other with sharp instruments and living to tell the story, so had to choose carefully…
> 
> The rating is mainly due to the violence and since after years of fieldwork I still don’t understand how US ratings work, I’ve kept this one on NC-17 to be on the safe side.

_**Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - H50 - Steve/Danny**_  
 **Pairing:** Steve/Danny  
 **Genre:** slash  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Word count:** 2496  
 **Warnings:** Language, violence, hinted at sex and injuries  
 **Spoilers:** None  
 **Disclaimers:** Not mine, never mine, except in the still of the night. Title  & LJ cut text are Fight Club quotes, also just lovingly borrowed without nefarious intent.  
\---

The air was rank with sweat, stale beer and smoke.  
McGarrett blinked the sweat and blood out of his eyes. You had to hand it to the short guy, he packed a mean, mean punch.  
But then again, he had explicitly TOLD Danny to hit him like he meant it.

The crowd was cheering at the sight of blood running in rivulets over his face. Yup, bust-up eyebrows bled like hell.  
Steve was no stranger to this kind of minor injury, or any kind of injury for that matter. The pain meant nothing, but getting blood in his eye was a serious handicap, so he was grateful when the fight was briefly interrupted for someone to take care of it.

While the crowd was hissing and booing, a cigar smoking ex-bruiser did his very best to staunch the bleeding and Steve wondered when the fuck this job had started to go down the toilet.

~~~

It had all started with the body of a young man who had been obviously beaten to death with a blunt, spiked instrument. In the course of the investigation, HPD had found out that the vic was a senator’s son and hence H50 had been called in to do their thing.

It quickly became clear that the kid was in one of those bored to death rich cliques always on the lookout for the next thrill. And this week’s thrill apparently was taking part in some illegal fight club activity. These clubs were so deeply underground that it had taken Chin days to find out where, who and how.

When they had finally found a way in, thanks to one of Chin’s informers, Danny and Steve had gone undercover.  
Their background story was that Steve was an ex soldier (well, DUH) turned fighter desperately in need of money and Danny was his coach.

It equally quickly became clear that they needed to nail the head of the fight club, not only find the murderer, or else more people would die. This unscrupulous son of a bitch had no qualms whatsoever to pair up men with vastly different skills, just so the crowd would get the blood and gore they expected. The fight club boss, however, was very well protected and it was rumored that only the current fight club champion got invited to the boss’ house to party after his fights.  
So Steve obviously had to become the current champion.

The fighters had to draw lottery tickets from a large cast-iron kettle.  
On the slips of paper, their role in the upcoming fight was written. The fights were modeled after Roman gladiator fights, so you could be either a Retiarius (armed with a trident, a net and a dagger), a Paegniarius (whip, club and a shield), a Gallus (lance, helmet and a small shield) or a Dimachaerius (a sword in each hand).

Unsurprisingly, Steve won every single fight scheduled by skillfully making sure his opponents were too badly hurt to keep fighting, but not damaged for life. The audience loved him and women tossed little gifts and phone numbers in the ring when he was finished beating the other guys to a bloody pulp.

Danny rolled his eyes a lot and said it might help matters to come across a little less like the perfect killing machine, but Steve had argued that the longer they stuck around, the more likely they were to get recognized in a community as small and closely knit as Hawaii.

Too damn right.  
Steve had only one more fight to win before he could battle the champion, but during that fight, he was recognized by an old Navy “buddy”. The guy had nothing better to do than run over to McGarrett after he had won and slap him on the shoulder while loudly yelling his name for all to hear. His REAL name.  
Things turned bad at record speed after that.

They had been quickly ushered into a dark cell by armed goons. The goon king, possibly number two in the fight club hierarchy, had given them the classical “two men enter, one man leaves” deal.  
They would fight each other. To the death.  
And the survivor would walk free.

When they were alone, Steve argued that Danny, being a father, would have to be that man. That earned him a fist in the face, with Danny yelling something about how could Steve be such a dick for brains and why would he even think they’d let him walk in the first place and even IF that were a real option, why did he think Danny would even WANT to and… HOW. COULD. HE. THINK. DANNY. COULD. HURT. HIM. LIKE. EVER.  
Each word punctuated by a poke in Steve's chest.

Steve had looked at Danny, breathing heavily, making erratic gestures with his hands long after he even stopped talking.  
He had continued to stare at Danny for a long time and finally he had understood.  
With one long stride he closed the distance between them, took Danny’s chin in his hand and then he had kissed the other man like there was no tomorrow.  
Which there probably wouldn’t be.

After that, they had sat on the cold floor, arms around each other’s hips, shoulders touching. They didn’t talk for a long time.  
What rotten timing for Steve to finally make a move, Danny thought in the silence. Fucking hell, they had wasted MONTHS dancing around each other. MONTHS. He shivered.

“Do you think Chin might somehow be keepin’ tabs on us?” Danny whispered, trying hard not to sound desperate.  
“Would be very disappointed if he weren’t,” Steve replied with a slight smile.  
“So, what do we do, Steven?”  
“Fight like we mean it, Danno, but draw it out until Chin and Kono get to us.”  
“You sure they will?”  
“Ohana, Danny. Ohana.”  
Which somehow was the most comforting thing Danny had ever heard.

Shortly afterwards, the goons came back for them. They dragged them into the arena. The crowd seemed to be cheering even more loudly than usual. Hundreds of faces were staring at them with bloodlust in their eyes.

This time, the kettle had only held two slips of paper, each with the word ‘Noxius’ on them.  
Of course, Danny had bitched about why couldn’t they just use plain English names, but Steve had just stood there in stoic silence, lips pressed together. He had remembered the word immediately.

Criminal. That’s what it meant.  
And he remembered reading about gladiators in Rome. The Noxii had either fought each other with or without weapons and one or both would have been blindfolded.  
Steve hoped they wouldn’t blindfold them. He would have less control over where he hit Danny and then things could go seriously wrong. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when it became clear they would be unarmed and expected to pummel each other to death without being blindfolded.

~~~

Steve raised his head to look at Danny across the ring. His partner would be sporting some rather impressive bruises the next day.  
If Steve could make sure the man made it to the next day.  
He got up, ignoring the searing pain in his head, waved the cigar chomper away and walked towards the middle of the ring.  
Danny did the same.

Steve could read regret in the other man’s eyes.  
That and something much more complex that would have to wait until they got out of here.  
Danny raised his fists and Steve could read just where this was going to go, like he had been able to do with every single other punch of Danny’s. The man was just too easy to figure out.  
Steve would have to teach him better when they got out of there.

Steve took the punch on the left side of his ribcage. He could feel a rib give, but that was of no importance.  
The crowd was cheering again, loving the brute force of this, loving the brutality. Steve retaliated with a mean left hook. Yes, that would leave a bruise as well. Danny’s eyes briefly glazed over, but after he had shaken his head, all seemed well again.  
As well as it could be, given that they were just pretending to be beating each other to death to the cheers from the crowd. Given that rescue was uncertain and armed goons were watching all exits. Given that a slight lapse in concentration could…

It was a good thing that Steve had been trained to keep his face impassive. And it was a good thing that Chin had entered the warehouse in Danny’s back. Or so Steve thought until he hit Danny again, a hard punch that was supposed to land harmlessly on Danny’s shoulder.  
Only Danny turned at the last second, obviously distracted by something behind Steve’s back, possibly Kono, and the ugly punch connected with a sickening noise with Danny’s jaw, right near the hinge.  
Danny went down like someone had switched out his light.

After that, Steve’s memory got kind of hazy.  
Not that memories of mayhem and chaos were very clear as a rule, but in this instance, he wasn’t even part of the mayhem and the chaos, he was just kneeling next to Danny, trying to get the man to wake up.

Chin and Kono were at the center of the mayhem and the chaos, as they obviously took Danny going down as their clue to start the assault. HPD was flooding the warehouse and arrest after arrest was made without resitance, after the goons understood that they were hopelessly outnumbered.

The next thing Steve remembered with something like clarity was the arrival of the paramedics. Danny’s jaw was broken.  
For fuck’s sake, he had gone and broken Danny’s jaw!

He refused to let go of Danny’s hand until they reached the hospital and they made it crystal clear to him that they would NOT let him stay bodily attached to Danny during surgery. He remained standing ramrod straight in front of the surgery doors until the surgeon came out and assured him Danny would be fine. Then he turned on his heels and went home.

That was the last anyone saw of Steve for the next 9 days.  
He wasn’t answering his phone, wasn’t opening his door, simply had fallen off the face of the earth. After Day 2, Chin called the Governor, not knowing what else to do. She said Lieutenant Commander McGarrett had asked for and received a leave of absence for personal reasons.

Chin and Kono were bewildered.  
Steve didn’t even show up at the hospital. Not even once.  
They tried to make excuses to Danny, but eventually had to tell him Steve was MIA. Anything after Kono mentioned the “leave of absence for personal reasons” just got agitated grunts and far too much movement from the patient, so they just pretended that everything was alright.

When Danny was released, he mumbled something that Chin interpreted as wanting to be driven to Steve’s place, rather than home. Chin protested that Steve wasn’t answering the door, but Danny chopped off any protest with rapid moves of his hands.  
On the way to Steve’s house, Chin had to grin. Danny was trying so hard not to talk - just like the doctor had ordered - that he actually was almost turning blue with the effort of keeping it all in.  
And his hands were twitching, as if they were trying to talk as well.

After Chin deposited Danny on Steve’s porch, Danny motioned for him to drive off. Chin was having none of it at first, but in the end, he gave in. Mostly because he didn’t want Danny to burst an aneurism or something with trying to get him to leave without saying a word.  
As he drove off, he could see Danny hammering on the door in the rearview mirror.  
Just before Chin turned the corner, the door opened. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Steve was blind drunk, which shocked Danny no end.  
Steve looked worse than Danny, which also came as a shock.  
Steve wouldn’t stop talking, which shocked Danny even worse than the two other things combined. Words were just gushing forth from McGarrett’s mouth and all were more or less about how he should’ve anticipated Danny making that move, how he had cut it too close and how it was his fault that Danny got hurt. And how that made him a worthless piece of shit.

Danny tried his manly best to cut in, but Steve was so caught up in his drunken tirade of self-loathing that he didn’t even notice the mumbled sounds Danny was making, or the gestures, or anything much except for his own misery.

So Danny did the only thing he knew that would shut the man up. He grabbed Steve’s t-shirt and pulled the man close, then locked his lips over Steve’s. Kissing with a broken jaw was not easy, nor was it very enjoyable, but it at least did the trick.  
When Danny let go, Steve was silent.

Danny ran his thumb over Steve’s lips. They had unfinished business alright. Steve shuddered and the look of pure longing on his face made Danny want to just drag the man to the floor right there in the hall. He managed to get the word “bed” out fairly clearly and Steve nodded a little dazedly, took Danny by the hand and led him upstairs to his bedroom.

Okay, given that Steve was drunk and Danny fresh out of hospital, as well as severely handicapped by his broken jaw, that certainly didn’t rank as the best sex they had ever had in their lives.  
But at least they had stopped dancing around each other like a pair of lovesick dogs.

The next evening, Chin and Kono dropped by for dinner. Steve was grilling steaks and couldn’t quite keep the happy grin off his face the entire time.  
Danny walked over to pick up the fish Steve had prepared just for him, as Danny hadn’t fancied a steak when he realized it would have to be put in the blender for him.  
Not being able to chew sucked ass.

As Danny held out his plate, Steve surprised him by leaning over and giving him a gentle kiss. Danny turned to walk back to the table. Chin and Kono were both sporting huge grins.  
“So you guys FINALLY saw the light, eh, brah?” Chin asked.  
“When did it happen?” Kono asked. “When you got out of hospital?”

Steve’s voice was slightly gravelly as he replied, “When we were waiting for that damned fight.” He sat down and started on his steak.  
“Seriously? You started to make out while being imprisoned by the bad guys? You guys are SERIOUSLY kinky,” Chin laughed.

Danny wore a slightly pained grin on his face and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “First rule of fight club: You don’t talk about fight club”.  
But then again, he might just have asked for a beer and a straw.  



End file.
